Thank goodness for PhillyBurbs and The Philadelphia Inquirer's Mari A. Schaefer in particular - they have not forgotten Jamie Cockayne anymore than we have. The wheels of justice need a little grease down in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and we wish that state side some U.S. Congressmen, The Attorney General, AND our U.S. Senators would pay more attention. We would have thought Bucks Congressman Patrick Murphy would have been all over this, and well, where's he been? Where has the U.S. Attorney General (whichever one it happens to be at the time) been? Where has Arlen Specter been other than apparently Pakistan? There are more than enough irregularities in this case that it should be more than blogs following it - not that we aren't glad to do out part to show support for the extended Cockayne family, some of whom hail from the Main Line - it is just time for the U.S. Government to really look into this U.S. Territory from top to bottom. Unless of course, we should all just stop going there? Do the U.S. Virgin Islands want a real boycott?
We all read recently that the Natalee Holloway case has been sort of "Cold Case" closed, and even if we still do feel Jamie Cockayne deserves equal time in coverage, we feel badly that we might never know in our lifetimes what happened to that teenaged girl.
But back to Jamie. We DO know what happened to Jamie. He was brutally murdered. Since then, it's been kinda haphazard, hasn't it? Here are the suspects in his murder in case you have never seen them:
Anselmo Boston
Kamal "Six Pack" Thomas
We think that 2008 should bring more justice then 2007 did for Jamie. Here are excerpts from the aforementioned articles:
Anguished by loss, angry over rulings
By Mari A. Schaefer
Inquirer Staff Writer
Members of a New Hope family whose son was stabbed to death in the U.S. Virgin Islands six months ago say they remain unhappy with how the case is being handled, despite the arrests of two suspects.
The death of 21-year-old Jamie Cockayne, knifed after he left a bar on the resort island of St. John, got national attention in the weeks before the August arrests.
But with the men - charged with first-degree murder - released after posting bail, the Cockaynes are angry, complaining that the police and prosecution initially failed to appear at a bail hearing for one defendant.
"One hand does not know what the other is doing, that is for sure," said Jean Gilligan Cockayne, mother of the slain man.
The island residents charged with murder are Kamal "Six Pack" Thomas and Anselmo Ricardo Boston.
"This case has been given the attention it deserves," Virgin Islands Attorney General Vincent Frazer said in a recent interview.
It was at Boston's bail hearing that the prosecutor and detective on the case did not appear.
"It is hard to have any confidence in the local government there when it bungles everything every step of the way," said Sean Summers, attorney for the Cockayne family.
Especially upsetting to the family was the relatively low bail. The Virgin Islands Daily News reported that Boston was able to post $100,000, with family property as collateral, and that Thomas had posted 10 percent of $75,000.
In Pennsylvania, there is no bail for first-degree-murder defendants.
The Cockaynes' criticism is only the latest controversy involving the professionalism of the Virgin Islands police and the decision-making of the local Superior Court judge, Leon A. Kendall, who set Thomas' bail......Controversial for bail decisions in other cases, Kendall said that a detective had called the case against Thomas "circumstantial," and that the detective had not interviewed alibi witnesses who placed Thomas elsewhere at the time of the slaying. The opinion noted that Cockayne's body had been found one hour after he left the bar - which is near a St. John police station....Frazer said his staff's failure to appear at the hearing had resulted from "a mix-up in communication with the prosecutor and the court." The case is "on track to where it should be at this time," he said.
Kendall, meanwhile, faces a hearing on earlier complaints that he released defendants accused of violent crimes on little or no bail.
The judge has also filed a libel suit against two reporters from the Virgin Islands Daily News over articles about his bail decisions....Gilligan Cockayne has given out her phone number on blogs and in newspapers in an attempt to find witnesses, and has traveled to the Virgin Islands to meet with the governor and attorney general....The Virgin Islands Police Department has been criticized before.
This year, the Virgin Islands Daily News won a top Associated Press Managing Editors award for its accounts of corruption and incompetence in the police Major Crimes Unit.
In 1995, the paper won a Pulitzer Prize for a series that described wide failings in police, local prosecutors and the judiciary.
And from PhillyBurbs:
By RILEY YATES
The Intelligencer
They were two young men just striking out on their own.
Away from home and pursuing a new step in their lives, they were killed in violence that shook their families, their friends and their communities.
Kyle Quinn, 19, of Warminster, was beaten to death Sept. 7 at Kutztown University, where he had just started classes.
Jamie Cockayne, 21, of New Hope, bled to death June 19 after being stabbed after a bar fight in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Two random, senseless murders that stunned the area and left people searching for answers.
In neither case has a motive been fully established, though both have resulted in multiple arrests.
In Cockayne’s case, the 2005 New Hope-Solebury High School graduate was in the Virgin Islands awaiting paperwork that would allow him to take a job as a boating instructor.
time to turn up the heat in the US Virgin Islands
Recently, an article appeared in the St. John Tradewinds News with the title of "Chamber of Commerce’s St. John Chapter Gathering Momentum".
The premise of the article was the reawakening of the Chamber of Commerce on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands in reaction to things like negative publicity due to the inconvenient things like the murder of Jamie Cockayne in June 2007.
Someone with this Chamber of Commerce, named Debbie Hime said in essence that they want to get the US Virgin Islands Department of Tourism more actively involved and to encourage business owners on St. John USVI to be more "proactive" and to react faster when combatting negativity - this person referred directly to Jamie Cockayne's murder.
"Hmmmm. Let's see.." said the spin doctors working on their tans while sipping a cool island drink "How can we get the positive out of murder? How can we cheerfully spin those unfortunate incidents that happen to tourists like robberies and muggings?"
Spinning won't help and these folks need to be advocates for change, positive change. To that end, one of our members who knows one of Jamie Cockayne's cousins wrote a letter to the Chamber of Commerce on 12/31/07. We'll see if they receive a response. They e-mailed stjohnchapter@gmail.com - here is an excerpt of that letter:
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